St. Margarets Pioneer Cemetery Restoration

Pioneers rest in peace

 by Adele Townshend, 1979

Early Scottish settlers lie in the Pioneer Cemetery near the sandy cove at St. Margarets in Eastern Kings. Bear River, a fresh water stream, flows into the sea nearby. The Highlanders, driven from their homes by religious persecution after the defeat of Bonnie Prince Charles, must have found St. Margarets a pleasant spot to build again.

I don't have any ancestors buried in the old cemetery but I've spent many hours wandering through it. As a child, I went with my family to picnics there. Part of the time was spent on the beach and swimming but the best part was spent pcking blueberries among the markers. At that time the spot resembled a scene from Wuthering Heights. The treeless moors surrounded the old cemetery with its stone fence. Inside, the mounds and hollows mllows were covered with bayberrybushes and wild flowers that somtimes completely obscured the smaller stones. To enter the cemetery, then as now, one has to go over a causeway over an old streambed. It was a fascinating spot and the berries were always bigger and bluer there.

In later years an attempt was made at restoring the old cemetery. All but a few of the larger and heavier stones were bulldozed over the fence and the burying ground itself was levelled in preparation for replacing the stones. But there was a delay and for years the situation remained the same. Older then but still a blueberry picker, I walked around the stone fence of the cemetery. I am firmly convinced that as I looked over and around the tangled heap of markers, I saw a snaIl white child's stone with a very early 1800 date. (I've looked for it in recent years but it is not there now.)

A number of years ago, I visited Patrick McCormack and his wife at St. Margaret's and they told me the story of the old cemetery.

The first church was built in 1803, a small log one. In 1837 the church was enlarged to make room for the increasing population and in 1857 a still larger church was built.